Camille Charrière: woman of influence

She recently topped 590,000 followers on Instagram and made it into the Business of Fashion 500 list of the people shaping the global fashion industry. Five years after launching her Camille Over the Rainbow blog, Camille Charrière has entered the charmed circle of fashion system influencers. We caught up Camille between shows.

Photographe : Andrew Woffinden
Photographe : Andrew Woffinden

BACKGROUND

The daughter of a teacher mother and an engineer father, Camille Charrière is the only one in her family to show an interest in the fast-moving world of fashion. “One day, when I was little,” she recalls, “I found these salmon pink sandals that I really, really wanted, because usually they always bought me navy ones. My mother finally gave in, but my father said no, and I had to take them back to the shop.” English was the only language spoken in the Charrière household, her Franco-Brit mother having made that conditional on her settling in France – which explains why Camille is equally at home in both languages. Another legacy of her upbringing is a true eco-awareness. “I’ve always been conscious of environmental issues and excessive consumption. When brands suggest I choose too many items for my taste, I prefer to decline them.”

BIRTH OF A FASHION BLOGGER

After six years studying law, Camille Charrière opted for the City: “I made the choice so that I could start working very quickly, especially as London, where I had decided to live (and still do), is a very expensive place. But right from day one, finance turned out to be everything I hated.” So she started a blog, “Camille Over The Rainbow”, to write about what she really liked – fashion. She would update it in the evening or during her lunch breaks. Very soon, her blog came to be an “Interactive CV”, especially with Net-a-Porter, where she got her big break. She worked there on editorial content before moving to British e-shop Matchesfashion.com, in 2013. After a few months, her employers asked her to choose between her blog and them. No contest: she chose to blog.

Photographe : Andrew Woffinden
Photographe : Andrew Woffinden

SHOW STOPPER

“I managed to stand out because of the fashion weeks. I started going to the shows before the other bloggers and I got noticed.” Since then Camille has continued to frequent the shows and takes advantage of them to do the interviews that feed the Fashion No Filter podcast she produces with a friend, Monica Ainley. “Our Instagram followers aren’t especially interested in fashion week, which gets plenty of mainstream media coverage. But it’s a useful time to get up close to a lot of people in the industry.”

#INSTAGRAM

“When Instagram went live, most people didn’t really see its potential. But us bloggers immediately began using it as a showcase to get people coming to see what was happening on our sites.” As time went by, the photo uploaded to Instagram began to be more than just a teaser – it existed in its own right, even if it meant that the original blogs were neglected. Camille has kept her own blog as a “personal space” with op-ed pieces, never forgetting that was where she started out. But her success is undoubtedly linked to the Instagram explosion and the way the brands use it, aware of the power of this formidable communication resource. In the early days, all you needed to do was upload a “small shoot” with H & M to attract droves of followers. “Today, when a big brand posts a photo of you, you get new followers, but people are following so many people these days that you have to stand out from the crowd if you want to grab them.”

Photographe : Andrew Woffinden
Photographe : Andrew Woffinden

HOW TO BE AN INFLUENCER

Unlike some, Camille tells it just as it is. When you ask her about being an influencer, her reply is less than politically correct: “Bloggers have become influencers because the brands have decided to devote a share of their marketing budget, usually restricted to advertising, to them. In the early days, we were paid little or nothing, we did what we wanted, except that gradually, more and more brands began to take an interest in us. They now ask us to sign contracts with such-and-such a product to post, on such-and-such a day and time, with a detailed specification.” Camille rejigs those restrictions in her own way, offering advertisers solutions far closer to her real persona. “The brands are seeking us out because of our point of view. You have to preserve it and not hide the fact from your followers that the post is sponsored.”

GUEST LIST

“Bloggers will often tell you they say no to everything, but that’s just marketing guff! You can tell the difference between those who are true to themselves and those who wear everything that’s thrown at them.” Ever since she started out, she’s applied the same rule: only accept gifts from brands you really love. That said, she doesn’t turn down all offers that may be outside her fashion comfort zone, provided she’s allowed total creative control: “If I can adopt an item that in theory isn’t my style, and if the brand is OK with me taking a different angle with it, why not work with them? If they won’t budge, then, on the contrary, the answer’s no. A walking billboard I’m not. Forcing a total look on me that’s already been decided won’t work.”

Photographe : Andrew Woffinden
Photographe : Andrew Woffinden

GAUGING YOUR AUDIENCE

Recently, Instagram began drawing up statistics on followers that the bloggers can then pass on to the brands. In Camille Charrière’s case, 82% of her followers are women aged 25-34, the top 3,000 of whom live in London, Paris, and New York. In short, women just like her. Although the number of followers counts, knowing who they are is also important. Being followed by teens, for example, generates more likes, but less influence. “The idea isn’t to have a fan club that approves everything with no supporting commitment.” Time was when the brands simply had to trust the bloggers. These days, the new data have changed everything as influence becomes a metric that can be measured, even if Camille isn’t happy with the idea: “On Instagram, you find celebrities who nurture a particular universe without attracting thousands of followers, whereas others have followers in their millions but don’t generate any results for the brands.” So the calculation is more complex that it seems...

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?

Fully aware that fashion is an industry, Camille is relishing her good fortune of making it into the Business of Fashion 500: “You really are out there on a limb when you’re a blogger – you don’t necessarily have a mentor or an advisor, so it’s pretty tough. You have to trust your instincts. I know that I do a lot more than just writing a blog, but it’s great when others realise it too.” Her intuition as to what the future holds is that the scramble for followers that is currently key won’t be able to go on for much longer. “It’s becoming an unhealthy obsession. Today, there are so many profiles on Instagram that you can keep scrolling forever. That’s why I created my podcast – I needed to go back to a more laid-back content creation – to do audio, not video.” Which means that we’re counting on her to come up with ever more ingenious ways of telling it like it is.

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